The new year at the King Richard III Visitor Centre has started with a bang with an award, an accreditation and great news for visitors buying tickets for the city centre attraction.

Following a detailed assessment in November last year, the Visitor Centre has been accredited under VisitEngland’s Visitor Attraction Quality Scheme (VAQAS). As part of the assessment, an industry professional came to the Centre as a “mystery shopper” to provide an unbiased opinion of the visitor experience. The city centre attraction received a score of 85%, which is considered a very good score for a first inspection at a new attraction.

Iain Gordon, Visitor Centre Director said: “We are delighted that the team’s hard work and effort has resulted in receiving such recognition.

“The preparation for the VAQAS assessment was rigorous and the whole team was involved. VisitEngland provide guidelines for what the assessor would be on the lookout for, which could have been anything from the number of toilets available to the information included on our website. We also needed to ensure that our overall experience was of a very high standard and receiving the accreditation is testament to the work we have put in to creating an excellent experience for our visitors.”

In addition to the VAQAS accreditation, the Visitor Centre is pleased to announce that their admission tickets are now valid for a whole year – not just the day they are bought on! Tickets purchased since the Centre re-opened on 16th January 2016 can be used to make return visits on any day the Centre is open, up to a year after the date of purchase.

Good news always comes in threes – the Centre has been awarded the Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Quality Badge in recognition of the development and implementation of its highly comprehensive education programme. The award follows a pledge made by the Visitor Centre to continue to provide high quality learning outside the classroom and meet all of the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge indicators.

Rachel Ayrton, Learning and Interpretation Manager said: “One of the aims of the Visitor Centre Trust is to work closely with learning organisations to share the incredible story of King Richard III and so to be recognised by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom is especially pleasing.”

For more information on the Centre go to: www.kriii.com or call 0300 300 0900.